PeterMitchell-506-564364 Death Ride To Osaka is quite a harrowing film, where at the end of this, from our lead's perspective, we too feel drained as we've been put through this poor girl's ordeal. A vulnerable girl (Leigh) answers an ad for a hostess/ singer, and boy, is she mislead. The ads a front for a sex slavery ring. This is an all too real situation, where our innocents who show promise, whether it's in singing, acting, modelling, travel to Asian countries where it's not long before they're hooked on drugs, and are selling their bodies, where the crime syndicates profit big time. Here our lass, is a promising singer, where here in Tokyo, is not all she ends up doing. Defying the bastards who are using her for sex, she goes to the authorities to no avail. She is truly trapped. The boyfriend, a marine, who returns home, sets out after her, he too describing his girlfriend as vulnerable. Death Ride doesn't go for the sex or nudity either. There's little of either. It takes it's subject from a realistic standpoint, where we share Carol's journey and plight to escape this hell hole. And when the girls complain too much, they're sent on that death ride, where in Osaka, it's a much deeper hell. An older woman who's sent there, escapes, and is run down. A younger woman at the start, protesting to an older John about touching her, we revisit her later where she now looks older and highly drugged, forming a lazy speech pattern. Leigh fits the bill superbly amongst other good players. Although a t.v. movie. this is an eye opener for teens out there who have stars in their eyes, not to be duped by every ad they see, where this film serves as a forewarning to the dangers that are hugely present in far away countries.

whpratt1 Viewed this film under the title, "Death Ride to Osaka" which is the same film as "Girls of the White Orchid" which deals with the Japanese Mafia who run an establishment that deals with young girls from America who have some talent like singing and dancing and are willing to selling their bodies for entertainment. However, these young girls are hired by an agency in the Los Angeles who advertise for young talented gals and they have no idea what they are really being hired for. Jennifer Jason Leigh, (Carol Heath) is one of these young girls who falls into this trap and finds herself trapped in Japan and at the mercy of dirty old men and Mafia pimps. This story goes on and on and begins to get very boring with girls trying to escape and some being sent to OSAKA.

Lechuguilla Oriental bad guys entice a sweet, naive young American girl named Carol (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Tokyo, ostensibly to further her singing career. But the bad guys run a prostitution ring out of a Tokyo club called the White Orchid. And Carol's real job is that of a prostitute. Carol resists, and her boyfriend leaves the U.S. to rescue her. Based on a real life event, this made-for-TV film is sub-par.For one thing, Leigh is miscast. She's too young and too innocent looking. Another problem is that beyond the basic premise, there just isn't that much to the story. Pacing is slow. Characters spend a lot of time walking around on the streets. Ancillary singers sing and perform in the club. All of which add up to ... filler.The film has a cheap, made-for-TV look and feel. Music is nondescript. Acting is stilted. The film's ending is predictable and visually unimaginative. "Girls Of The White Orchid" is rather like an inferior imitation of an extended episode of Hawaii Five-O. I kept waiting for Steve McGarrett to show up to tell his partner: "book'em, Danno".

Dan Harkless I bought this DVD not expecting a whole lot given its price tag of $6.99, and it was neither better nor worse than I expected. Only bought it because Jennifer Jason Leigh, who stars, is one of my favorite actresses. BTW, you might be confused looking at the DVD's front cover (which IMDb reproduces), because it shows a picture of co-star Ann Jillian with a caption of "Jennifer Jason Leigh". Dunno if the schlock DVD producers didn't know the difference or if they just thought the photo of Jillian all dolled up like a prostitute would be more eye-grabbing.The film itself is about as good as you'd expect a U.S. TV "movie of the week" from 1983 to be. Interestingly, there's some nudity (the breasts of Jennifer Jason Leigh and a couple of other actresses make an appearance), so I wonder if it was produced for a pay-TV channel.I was surprised to find out after watching the film that it's based on a true story (I don't think they mention this in the credits anywhere). You'd never think this given the unrealistic nature of many of the events in the film.Other than the stilted dialogue, lack of imagination, bog-standard camera setups, and whatnot, an annoying factor is the cross-racial casting. True, the average American can't tell at a glance from where in Asia someone comes from, but Asians can tell, and Asiaphiles can tell. Much worse than the non-Japanese-looking actors, however, is the absolutely horrible pronunciation of Japanese dialogue. Oddly, none of the Japanese dialogue is subtitled, which wouldn't have been too terrible for me, as I speak Japanese, but the language is so butchered by the non-Japanese-natives that I couldn't comprehend much of it. In one scene an American actress seems to use nonsense syllables when she's supposed to be speaking Japanese (perhaps she couldn't remember her line or they didn't get it translated for her in time or something).To sum up, fans of Jennifer Jason Leigh (or T2 score-writer Brad Fiedel) may want to watch this out of curiosity, but others need not bother. Personally, I had to watch Leigh's wonderful performance in "The Hudsucker Proxy" afterwards to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.